Elizabeth Drakes's Site

Fantasy Romance

greed

It’s My Story. Thanks Anyway.

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I am not very good at listening.

So, as I told you here, my paid editor didn’t like the villain in my current romance novel. She thought the bad guy needed more than just a sense of greed and entitlement.

freegamesgreed
Because no one, especially a great author, has ever used greed as motivator.

So, I added another character that was supposed to be the star-crossed villain, doing evil things out of love. I revamped the original villain to be more sympathetic. I did everything the editor said I should.

And it didn’t work.

Why?

Because now I like the characters, and the new “villain” developed their own character in the process. Becoming a person that wouldn’t actually commit murder.

*throws hands up*

I know. I hate it when characters stop listening to their author-god and go do their own thing.

But see, here’s the thing. People do bad stuff all the time. People are motivated by greed, and fear, and lust. Not everyone is altruistic.

I’m not even sure everyone is a hero in their own story.

Yeah, I know us writers are fed this a great deal. But I’m not sure it’s true.

Not everyone thinks they’re blameless. Some people know what they’re doing is wrong and do it anyway.

I want this thing, so I’m going to take it. Yeah, it’s wrong. So what? Yeah, it may hurt someone, but I’m going to take what I want.

bothmine

Don’t believe me?

How many con artists are scamming people out of their money and justifying it to themselves on some higher moral ground? Because there’s totally heroic reasons to call a grandmother pretending to be her granddaughter in a horrible car accident and beg for money in the form of non-traceable gift cards so the hospital will admit her. *that was sarcasm*

Or calling parents and telling them their child was kidnapped and demanding ransom money or they’re be killed.

So, maybe the villain in this story really is just in it for money. Maybe they’re willing to steal an old man’s retirement savings by pretending to be the love his life. Or maybe they’re willing to kill a scrupulous duke to keep gold flowing.

It’s my story. And while this villain may have had a traumatic childhood on the streets of Aerius, that’s not the story.

I don’t care why he values money over someone’s life. He does. And a flip through the news will show he’s not alone.

What Should a Dragon Hierarchy Look Like?

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I’ve been contemplating adding dragons to my world in the form of their own series of stories, but I’m wrestling with establishing a dragon hierarchy.

Why do I need dragons? Well, that’s self explanatory!

Why do I need a dragon hierarchy?

Because I fell like I can’t have every dragon in the world be a supremely powerful being with almost godlike status, though they all may think they have such status. Much like cats.

cat2
Yeah, about how my cats see themselves.

Organizing dragon “classes” along the lines of size makes some sense to me, and the larger the dragon, the more powerful it would be.

Depending on the source of your dragon lore, dragons do seem to come in all sizes, from some not much larger than a pixie, to some the size of a castle or small mountain. If a mountain dragon could swallow a pixie dragon without really noticing, well, yeah, it makes more sense that the mountain dragon is more powerful.

dragon-1829827_640
Yup, pixie dragon wouldn’t even be a snack.

I’d post some cool pictures of different dragons, but I’m not sure that’s allowed as most aren’t creative commons. So, here’s  link to my dragon page on Pinterest. You’ll quickly get the idea.

There’s a great deal of dragon references in my current series of novels. I try not to do an info dump, but you’ll see that while most people pay homage to Dracor, the god of justice, (who happens to take the form of a great gold dragon), most people also think dragons themselves are extinct.

Dragons of ages past are known to exist, and it’s widely believed they were made in Dracor’s image, but they succumbed to vanity, pride, and greed. Dracor smote the worst offenders, then cursed the remainder with nothing but male offspring, dooming the race to extinction.

Unless the dragons can figure a way around it, but I’ll leave that for the story.

doomed
About sums it up.

While the readers may not know it, I know the original dragons, known as the Shard of Dracor, still exist. At least one of them, anyway. Humans have given these original dragons the name Embershard as that’s what the draconic words sound like in the human language.

These original dragons are the size of mountains, supremely powerful, and highly territorial. They hated the humans and elves when the gods made them, seeing them as either rivals or insignificant playthings. As they were the first among dragons, the other races of dragons followed their lead.

I’m not sure my first dragon story should start with an Embershard.  Seems like he should be at the end of the dragon series, otherwise the others might seem less interesting.

And, I have yet to find an antagonist for an Embershard. Andertaemosian, Ander to us mere humans, believes he’s the last of the Embershard. And he may just be right. So what challenges the first creation of a god?

I’ll let that percolate some more, but I have a few ideas.

Thinking I’ll start the dragon saga with a distant cousin of the Embershards. A dragon that’s more the size of a large house than a mountain. Still terrifying. Still frightening. Still powerful. But not quite so over-the-top-powerful.

alabama2
Kinda like her.

Yes, I know Ander is polishing his scales. Of course he is. Vain dragon.

Not sure if that works. Can you have varying sizes of dragons and make the world feel whole and real? I’m not sure. I’ve seen the color of dragons used a lot to delineate this. Anne McCaffrey did this and so does D&D. But that doesn’t feel right to me. I love the idea of a variety of colors of dragons, perhaps once considered jewels of the sky.

I could go with the dragon vs wyrm vs wyvern. But I sorta want them all to be like the traditional European dragon. Think Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. While I love the grace and beauty of the Chinese dragon, especially in the Zelda Breath of the Wild game, they need a different setting and context to shine.

 

Know of any good resources for creating dragon hierarchies? Could you believe in size as the determining factor? Or do you think Anne McCaffrey and D&D are on to something with color?